“If Dorayaica captures His Radiance, his pet magi will broadcast whatever humiliation it has planned to every human world in the galaxy. When we have all seen Caesar tortured, raped, used for a footstool—his belly slit open and his innards tossed to its servants . . . no one will want the Solar Throne. No one will believe in it. The Empire is a belief! A commandment! What is Caesar if not a man who can command that he is Caesar? Who can prove it by the sword?
